


too late to steal the show

by zappactionsdower



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: M/M, Modern AU, just imagine it as super melodramatic, role swap time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:08:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29462532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zappactionsdower/pseuds/zappactionsdower
Summary: “Why the fuck” he snarls quietly, “am I playing the Savior King?”“Because you're very intimidating.”  Professor Eisner says, as unflappable as always.  “And the lead character needs presence.”Dimitri's name sticks out like a cruel mockery.As the Duke.“Here's your script.”  Professor Eisner dumps a thick package of papers into Felix's arms.  “Practice is on Monday.”
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35
Collections: 2021 Dimilix Week





	too late to steal the show

Felix stares at the paper on the bulletin board.

And stares.

And stares.

The words don't change, no matter how hard he glowers at them. In fact, they somehow become bolder – standing out in stark contrast against all the other names and roles listed.

“Why the fuck” he snarls quietly, “am I playing the Savior King?”

“Because you're very intimidating.” Professor Eisner says, as unflappable as always. “And the lead character needs presence.”

Felix seethes. He didn't even want to be in a freshman play. He definitely didn't want a lead part. He only signed up to begin with because Annette asked him to help him work on the props.

“Find someone else.” He turns, intending to stomp on out.

And then he notices the lines at the bottom.

Dimitri's name sticks out like a cruel mockery.

As the Duke.

“Here's your script.” Professor Eisner dumps a thick package of papers into Felix's arms. “Practice is on Monday.”

Felix doesn't sulk. Sulking is for immature brats. What Felix is doing is fuming because his professor is clearly plotting something that Felix doesn't understand at all.

“I think you'll make an excellent king.” Dimitri says from the carpeted floor where he's playing games. He's gardening – Felix doesn't understand why he always gardens or tends to the flowers or feeds cows but it's fine. If Dimitri does it, Felix doesn't have to and can instead fight all the monsters that populate the outskirts of the village.

“He talks too much. Ever notice how many speeches the king has to make?” Felix huffs. There are hundreds of legends about the Savior King and his supporters during some long-ago war in Fodlan's distant past. Some say the entire thing is just fairy tales based on old Faerghus legends about a time when dragons roamed and magic existed. Some historians say he really existed in some fashion even if a lot of the stories aren't exactly accurate.

But the gist of it is all the same – a mighty red emperor in a dress of bright red began setting the continent aflame and through some kind of magic and the guiding hand of the Goddess, the Savior King rose to quell the burning embers and brought about peace for his people.

When Felix was young, his father used to read the fairy tale versions every night. Dimitri usually slept in a sleeping bag on the floor, at least until the adults went to sleep and Felix flipped the blankets open for Dimitri to crawl into bed and snuggle close to Felix. Sometimes they'd just stay up and talk about fighting giant birds and beasts just like the old nameless warriors. 

The stories were trite but Felix liked that part.

Dimitri doesn't fit in his bed anymore and, more importantly, he snores. But he's still allowed to sleep over most nights and now they can hang out with Sylvain and Ingrid more too.

“How do you even act kingly?” Felix flips through the script and lets out an annoyed groan. “It's ridiculous.”

The Duke, according to legends, wasn't the talkative type and that means Dimitri's script is much smaller. He also gets to use a sword.

On the screen, one of the cows gets into the cabbage gardens.

“I really don't know.” Dimitri sighs. “Guess you'll have to forage for wood tonight.”

The first practice is hardly practice. All of them are corralled into the auditorium and directed to start reading through the play so they can understand their characters better. Professor Eisner gives them all sorts of cheerful speeches about the grand tradition of the freshman play and how every person in the school was looking forward to their performance.

Quite a few of their classmates turn green at that.

Felix finds a corner farther away from the bustling center of the stage. Already, Sylvain and Ingrid are talking stage design and Mercedes is very patiently going around to take measurements for people's costumes. 

It's going to be an awful two months.

The Savior King was supposed to be dangerously tough Most legends say he could crack boulders with his bare hands and some say he could lift two wagons at once. Felix pores through page after page, rolling his eyes at just how much the king monologues about community and his people and grand ideals over humans banding together. He sounds like some cartoon hero or something for Sothis’s sake!

He'd been a warrior though. A fighter. Felix imagines the king cutting through enemy after enemy, bright and brilliant and bold on the battlefield.

Yeah. That sounds better.

Felix mutters the lines back to himself over and over again, trying to get a feel for what he's supposed to be doing. In this play the king is named Alexander – yet another thing no one was quite sure of. At the start he's a vicious beast, driven only by revenge before his friends and a mysterious woman in black guide him to his destiny. 

“Any progress?” Dimitri sits down next to him, his own script folded and already detailed with little notes in colored pens. 

“I think he sounds like a drama queen.” Felix grumbles and ignores the little laugh Dimitri makes. “All this talk of the Goddess and hands – he's too unsure of himself to be a king.” Felix imagines it – a growling, looming warrior of a man that speaks with his weapon instead of his words. No wonder he had people around him. “What about the Duke?” The Duke was simple. The Duke was cold and harsh, a swordsman through and through.

“I think he's very sad.” Dimitri tilts his head thoughtfully. “You know?”

Felix's eyebrows furrow in confusion. “You're so strange.”

By the second week, Felix starts thinking he's doing something wrong.

The lines don't land right – he stands at the stage, staring out at the empty seats and delivers his lines with as much confidence as he can. But no matter how he tries to pin down the feeling of a warrior in conflict, a leader trying for revenge against those who are gone – his voice wavers. His jaw clenches.

It's even worse playing against Dimitri. Somehow, his delivery is all off in a way Felix can't explain. They're standing at center stage reading the script to one another and it's bad. Dimitri's all despondent moping about gravestones and lost family and moving ahead and Felix's gut keeps clenching and twisting into knots.

He's about to deliver the last line – all about perspectives and eyes opening and he -

He can't.

Felix does what he usually does in such circumstances.

He drops the script and turns, stubbornly marching away from the stage and the onlookers and stupid Dimitri reading lines stupidly.

Felix knows he's prone to emotional outbursts especially around his friends. At Ingrid's seventh birthday party he'd descended into a shouting match with Glenn because Glenn whacked the pinata open before Felix managed to. At their elementary school graduation it took all three of his friends consoling him for Felix to stop bawling before a class photograph.

It's worse with Dimitri. Something about his friend makes Felix's stomach hurt and his head ache whenever something goes wrong. They don't fight exactly - it's more that Dimitri digs his heels in and lets Felix lash out and then they go about their business doing something else. Felix never forgave Dimitri for breaking his Super Annatendo and Dimitri never brought up the argument at summer camp over Bigclaw existing ever again. It's confusing how straightforwardly simple it all is with Dimtiri. 

Felix scrubs at his eyes and glowers at a wall. He's not a baby anymore -they're in high school!! – and he shouldn't get so worked up about a stupid play.

But he can't figure out why it's wrong. Why Dimitri looking at him with such a pitiful gaze rubs him all wrong or why a stupid fantasy king acting all tough and vicious isn't the way it's supposed to be.

Maybe the Savior King was cold like the winters of Faerghus. Maybe all the princeliness is just an act and there really is a beast beneath. 

It still tugs on Felix's brain practice after practice. He settles into the role slowly, biting and snapping and beastly all the way up until the confrontation with the duke. That still doesn't click – some little part of Felix's brain too fixated on Dimitri's body language and how he looks at Felix like a lost puppy finally coming home.

They have their lines down perfectly. They have blocking down to a science and Felix doesn't need to even glance at anything to know where he stands and how his own body language looks to their audience.

And Felix still feels like the whole thing is wrong.

Professor Eisner is weird. He teaches history and always wears the same brown corduroy jacket that Felix is absolutely certain he found on some museum mannequin. His voice is always even and he can stare at an entire classroom without blinking for several minutes.

He also wears bottle-thick glasses and speaks about the Goddess like she's some cranky grandmother.

“You're doing really well.” Byleth says, not looking down at the clipboard he's used to take notes during the entire rehearsal period. “No stage fright at all.”

Felix knows full well how to ignore crowds. “And?”

“I can tell you're struggling with the scenes with Dimitri.”

Felix clenches his fists by his sides. It's imposing enough being one on one with a teacher, even in the absurd backstage area that's covered in costumes and homemade sets and Ferdinand's weird obsession with dragging in all sorts of fabrics and splaying them everywhere for “atmospheric effect”.

“It's not my fault. It's just – it's just off.” He's thought it through too many times. He's fixated on it each time they relay the scenes, each slightly different and each still imperfect.

“Is it difficulty with the subject matter?” Byleth waits, patient, unassuming and yet Felix knows he's being studied a little too carefully. “I can offer my own opinions but the purpose of the play is for all of you to cast your own lines.”

“No. I get it. “ Felix glances away at the rows and rows of paint cans that Raphael keeps stacking up and lugs around with far too much enthusiasm. “It just – it's not me.”

“It is not supposed to be you. You are simply playing a part.”

Felix sniffs. “The part is dumb. The king fights for everything – dead people, living people, but he won't fight against the duke? He just sits there and lets himself get trampled over.”

“I don't follow.”

“I don't either. And the duke – he's being an ass and - “

Felix's jaw snaps shut as some little missing piece snaps into place.

“Part of a play is trying to jump into someone else's pond. You aren't attempting to mimic some imaginary figure – you're trying to bring them to life. So perhaps you see it differently than someone else does. I do not think either Blaiddyd or Fraldarius would judge you for playing them wrong.”

“Why are you using our last names to talk about someone else?” Felix's eyes narrow.

“Oh.” Byleth blinks, very briefly. “So I am.”

“I think they were fucking.”

“I beg your pardon?!” Dimitri squeaks, blushing bright red. Mercedes clicks her tongue and grabs onto his wrist to measure it. She spares Felix only a passing glance full of gentle shame.

“Don't upset him while I'm trying to get his costume fitted.” Mercedes warns as she wraps a measuring tape around Dimitri's forearm.

“The duke and the king. They're fucking. That's why - “ Felix fumbles around for the right description. Explaining things isn't his strong suit, especially when other people's emotions are involved. “That's why they're all mopey.”

“The king is mopey?” Dimitri scrunches his nose up and he tilts his head like he always does when he's trying to work out a puzzle. “I suppose that works, of course, but he is so cruel to the king...”

Dimitri's got a weird habit of knowing how people are feeling at any time. He's just terrible at getting why. Felix learned long ago to just be blunt about what's bothering him instead of Dimitri wasting a week getting funny ideas like that Felix is mourning his goldfish or that Dimitri forgot something. (Usually, it's Glenn’s fault. Or Sylvain’s fault. Felix definitely did not mourn Tangerine the goldfish.)

“That makes it romantic, don't you think? Mercedes hums. She turns to Felix and snaps her tape. “Stand very still, all right?”

“You're going to make me armor, right?” Felix bristles. “I'm not wearing something ridiculous. A king should look cool. Give the duke the puffy sleeves or whatever.”

“Of course.” Mercedes soothes. “You know we have a very limited budget, don't you?”

“Just don't put me in black.” Felix watches Dimitri as he helps Annette roll out fabric. “It's too ghoulish.”

There's one week left before the curtains rise. Most of the cast scurries around making final preparations or testing special effects and Lysithea and Claude banned anyone from touching whatever program they're using to control the lights.

“Oh... It's nothing. But allow me to thank you. Your perspective has opened my eyes. “ Felix repeats and this time, it's a little less jarring. The king is being sincere enough but not really, the duke still a mystery that he is only now starting to solve.

“Hmph. Not my intention. I couldn't stand the pathetic look on your face. That's all. '' Dimitri's looming in his space – too large, too real, a duke that's ready to fight with words just as he would with weapons. It's still not right, still a little awkward, but maybe it's supposed to be.

“I see. If you say so, then we will leave it at that.” Felix lets his voice waver, lets his gaze settle on some spot on Dimitri's chest. It's not a conclusion. It's not supposed to be. Not like this.

And then something happens. He's ready to step back, let the scene end, when Dmitri grabs his hand and pulls him close.

Felix shoves his hand out by instinct when their lips meet in the briefest of kisses.

He doesn't notice all the tiny gasps from the other students. He doesn't notice the lights dimming.

Mostly he notices that Dimitri's lips taste like orange Gautierade.

Felix blinks and pulls back, utterly stunned.

Dimitri – not the duke – looks back at him curiously.

“Sorry.” He apologies and Felix considers whacking his arm. “It just felt right. For the duke, I mean.”

“Right.” Felix licks his lips. “The duke.”

“Is it all right? Like that?” Dimitri looks so hopeful. 

Dimitri's just so strange.

“It’s not bad.” Felix’s tongue twists around in his mouth and his heart beats just a little too fast. “You can do it again.”

“As the duke or myself?”

“Don’t be weird.” Felix whacks his arm - gently. “We’ll have to practice before curtain call. So it looks real.”

Dimitri smiles.

  
  
  



End file.
